The Unwinding Quotes

“She whispered into the ear of the dreaming bear. If I said that my love for you was like the spaces between the notes of a wren's song, would you understand? Would you perceive my love to be, therefore, hardly present, almost nothing?”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“When he walked in her dreams moths rose from the earth where his paws touched the ground, as if born from his footfall. They followed him, a cloud of moths of all colours. And the music of moth wings followed him. And the dancing lights of the northern sky hung in his breath. In his eyes, a world of wild. On his coat, the colours of snow. In his voice, the wisdom of untamed things.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Can they hear the stars, here where they lie in the hollow?”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Or would you feel how my love is wrapped around by the richest, the wildest song? And, if I said my love for you is like the time when the nightingale is absent from our twilight world, would you hear it as silence? Nothing? No love? Or as anticipation of that rich current of music, which fills heart, soul, body, mind.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“They are dreamers, these women, these bears, they are seers and speakers of truth, dancers of time, travelling the world, gathering stories.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And it seemed to him that she has always been a part of the landscape of his dreams, though for many years he could not understand her shape, until the day they met. So he told her the stories of colours and spoke with the gentle wings of moths, and walked through the world with her by his side. He loved this red colour of rosehips, like blood, but sweeter. She loved the light of wild in his eyes, the scent of frost in his fur and the movement of wings.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And so it seemed to her that he had always been a part of the landscape of her life, this great white bear. She brought him rosehips to sweeten his days, tried to explain how, once they had been flowers, but now were seeds. He had never seen a rose. He told her stories, coloured with every shade of white, and spoke of a sky that danced with lights. She felt that he understood how the world began, how it might end. And, even before they met, he walked in her dreams.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Later, as the moon rose and tangled in the winter-bone branches of thorn trees, she asked, 'Can you guide your dreaming? can you move your dreams along pathways of desire? do your dreams shift in the spaces between dreaming and waking? and, when you wake, do you remember the pathways your dreaming mind has walked? or do your dreams dissolve in the light of each new day?' She could not tell if he was asleep or awake, if her words were a lullaby. And still she has more questions.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Wild dreaming is what they desire most. Dreams that hold the scent of deep green moss, lichen, the place where the roots of a tree enter the earth, old stone, the dust of a moth's wings.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“One day she asked the hare why he had come to her, of all people. 'Some questions,' he replied 'are better left unanswered. And there will come a time when you will have need of me. Then you will know.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“One day she asked the hare why he had come to her, of all people. 'Some questions,' he replied 'are better left unanswered. A there will come a time wen you will have need of me. Then yo will know.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“After a while, maybe hours, perhaps a few days, she fond herself talking to the hare. At first just comments on how bright the day was, the beauty of cherry blossom, the touch of the wind.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Rest now, in the peace of the wild things. May the swan be your pillow, may the gold owl bring you visions. May the red fox gift you cunning, and the wolf bring you courage. And may the white horse lend her strength to all your days.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And, if I said my love for you is like the hare's breath, would you feel it to be transient? So slight a thing? Or would you see it as life-giving? Wild? A thing that fills the blood, and sets the hare running?”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And, sometimes, such stories, dreams, can only be told in questions, can only be found in answers.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“She asked him, What is the scent of snow? He replied, Soft, cold, blue. And she asked of blue could be a scent. He answered, Moss, tundra, clean earth and lichen. The scent of snow is calm, An absence of scent that illuminates, so that any warm life smells so rich.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“He gave her gifts: a crown of ice, woven with berries, feathers, and the light of love in his wild fox eyes.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“In summer heat he longed for her. When leaves turned, green to gold, he watched for her. As winter came, on feathered backs of redwing, fieldfare, and threaded through the call of curlew, he waited for her.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Do you dream when you are awake? do you imagine in words, in images? do you wander the pathways of what might have been, what might yet be and all that you might become? what is the shape of your imagination? are dreams important to you, part of the pattern of your soul?' 'Why do you wish to know?' he replied. For a long time she searched her heart for an answer. 'To better understand the geography of my heart' how it fits with the pattern of yours,' she said.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“When they spoke, the bear and the woman, it was often in questions. 'What are the shape of your dreams?' she asked him. 'What do you mean?' he replied. 'Many things in one question... what is the language of your dreams? and, when you dream, do you dream in words, images? and, when you dream, are your dreams colour, black and white, or colours only known to dreamers? are they visions, or something else?' He asked, 'something else?' 'Are they chemical, scent, touch? What shape do your dreams take? Do they have narrative, or are they abstract?' He closed his eyes, became lost in thought. For a while there was silence but for the sounds of birds, the soft breath of hares, a stir of winter leaves.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Nightmares do not interest her. She seeks only beauty, though sadness charms her, for often the deepest beauty can be found residing in sadness.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Did she know, this woman who found rest on the peace of wild things, how the swan, who offered her body as soft pillow, had once been a maiden, caught in a rainstorm, crouched by the water in shelter of bushes, mistaken by her lover out hunting in twilight, who, seeing only her white petticoat thought her a swan and shot? Did she understand how, rather than falling, her wild soul had risen into evening light and flight in the form of a wild swan?”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“She who could speak in leaves and knew the language of birds, the history of the world, knew that it was time for a change.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“She had not forgotten the time she was lost - how even while lost she refused to feel the fear, but instead saw only the green beauty of the wildwood, breathing deep the scent of trees, earth, lichen, moss.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And most times she follows them, because once she saw one, curving the air with its silvered colours when she walked in the rain, in the night, in search of a dream she had thought lost, a story she needed, to be complete.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“Snow mutes scent, he said. Cold steals the scent from land, but also enlivens. And, where ice meets sea, the salt scent sharpens, water thickens. Out on the ice, mineral pure, the scent of snow is a sharp pain, a tightening of breath.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“He woke in the dimity light of dusk to owl song and found her gone. Far across the valley the keen, yearning song of a solitary vixen called to his blood. The world turned.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“They danced. For three long winter nights. They slept through the short times of light, curled in each other's company. She gave him gifts: a lapwing wrapped in feathers, beaded with frost, a bowl of bright rosehips.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“And, if she dreamed of him first, before ever they met, it did not surprise her, for she knew the power dreams hold.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding

“The bear knows the scent of dreams as they flow like small streams through the air, and these streams are what they hunt, what they follow to their source, what they gather and bind.”
― Jackie Morris, The Unwinding